BeeD
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Everything posted by BeeD
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Funny story. I had a five gallon with some snails, and one day I dropped in a couple grape tomatoes that had started molding on me. Snails were moved, tank dried, but I watered it to keep the lucky bamboo alive. Then one day I had all these tomato sprouts. They're not going to be grape shaped, but I usually don't have anything this early in summer. Can't wait to see the final product.
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Yea I think @drewzero1kind of covered my strategy as well. I've just never tackled the kinds of projects that so many people here have. It's impressive what people do, but even if I tried to do something really complex and demanding, I would have to keep it limited to one tank. I try to easy mode everything as much as possible, so that when I go through my down phase I can just feed, test water, top off, clean sponges. Pothos/other plants, plenum, deep sand/gravel all seem to be keeping my nitrates at zero. I'm neck deep in guppy fry right now, but that's because I'm in project mode and just separated dozens of males out of the main tank.
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Second to last picture... That wood looks like it's on fire. Very cool.
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- bristlenose pleco
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Someone could have pulled that onto shore, too. It's interesting how burly that is.
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Big enough to supply the Navy with new recruits?
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Either they've really started blueing up in the fins, or I just didn't remember how nice your school was looking. I'll have to go back and see.
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Anubias kind of saved the hobby for me. I'm not that ambitious when it comes to plants, but I was so sick of having nothing but artificial decorations, and I guess my tanks are rare in that Java fern does not do well at all. This is 'The Groot Tank', I've posted it before. It has these lush anubias, some floating and some anchored in the substrate. It flourishes with Pothos.
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Any chance they hatched at the same time? Was it only fully grown adults? I think young ones eat more, and I think I've had a couple die-offs due to the little ones upsetting the foraging balance. Or at least I think that was what happened because all of the little ones survived.
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I've noticed some of them pay more attention to what I'm doing than others. Even on splurge days when they're full of shrimp there have been a couple who always seemed very curious about what I was doing. I assume they're full, but I guess it could be that they are never really done eating, like me on wings or nachos night. But I've seen videos of Blood Parrots who genuinely look like they are playing with people. This is why I still have way too many guppies. I try to separate, but the sneaker males hide really well sometimes.
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Rainbow Shiners, and a really nice school of them too. Wow!
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Previous version came off preachy. I was only speaking for myself. Rephrasing... To me it's just time. Time is money. If a hobby is hard, okay. If I do it 8 hours a day and make no money, then it's like having a job and it just isn't practical. Otherwise I'll put up with a lot. Then again I'm really not that ambitious with my tanks. I set them up so that I can go months just feeding them and enjoying them, occasionally cleaning a sponge filter, which allows me to make money and work on my future.
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Somewhere, it is said, someone also designed the first flying machine. The best ones are all made in the United States now. End thread.
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Okay. So I have determined a couple of things. One... 5 guppy floats is too much. I think 4 is the max, but I may drop it all the way down to 1 as other plants fill in. Also... I'm going to have to disrupt the crypts in the middle of their adjustment to their new conditions, because I did a pretty bad job planting the tank. Crypts and Bacopa need to be moved around a bit. Yea this is how long it takes me to "scape" a tank, lmao. Eventually I will add some décor, more rocks or wood....or both.
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Oh hi reddit.com.
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Yea it's close. I don't want to say that I know this for certain, because our memories aren't perfect, but I remember thinking it surprising me where the egg came out when I saw it. If you don't see little sesame seeds stuck to anything in your tank, though, that might not be it. This is the best series of pictures I could find. Take a look at all of them, but I think the 5th one down is the most useful. https://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/threads/caught-my-nerite-snail-laying-eggs.34959/
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That's what it looks like to me as well.
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I've always heard that it is around 4 hours from tank lights turning on, and that's when I feed a newer tank. Avoid feeding before the 2 hour mark and after the 6 hour mark for sure.
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Yea I'm even more convinced that it's ammonia. Every time you add a cartridge, the carbon could be starving half the beneficial bacteria and lowering your bio-filtration capacity. The more ammonia you produce, including in form of fertilizers (I think), the faster you neutralize the carbon. As soon as that carbon is neutralized, there is suddenly more ammonia than the surviving bacteria will eat. I use any of the following... 100% pure nylon pot scrubbers, those rolls of blue filter floss pads, or any of the sponges Coop sells as hob cartridge replacements.
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It's hard to pick up on ammonia spikes. Fish dying off in droves after increased bio-load is unfortunately one of the best indicators. A couple other people mentioned that it isn't a good sign if you're consistently testing low levels of ammonia, because that could mean that your filter is never getting ahead. So after your fish eat, after fertilizers, and potentially after PH or temperature swings stress your fish, ammonia levels could increase and cause temporary spikes beyond tolerable ranges. Unless you happen to be testing your water exactly when that spike is happening, you'll miss it. And it would be hard to know exactly when after a feeding that will happen. It sucks, but it's still part of the hobby. They sell those hang on backs with carbon cartridges, but the carbon just slows or destroys beneficial bacteria colonies. Then suddenly the carbon is neutralized and you get an ammonia spike. The bacteria then grows back on the blue floss covering on the cartridge, but there's so little of it that it isn't really enough for the tank size your filter was built for. Etc. Then, of course, the internet knows a LOT about the hobby, and it's hard to process it all. In your position, and I have been before, I would go with this; keep fish stocking low, no ferts for a while, feed only during peak photosynthesis, add filter material.
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I tried to read the entire thread but had to skim a bit so I can get back to work here, sorry if I'm duplicating advice. My opinion is that your tank absolutely reacted to bio-load, and that suggest to me that your system is not stable. With such neutral water, you may be getting PH swings, but more importantly I would say you're getting ammonia spikes. First thing I would do is improve filter media, keep the stocking low, let the beneficial bacteria settle in. If you like the look of lava rock, they may help bb colonize your tank and provide a good refuge for it for years. They are inert, so you will not be doing anything to swing your PH. More importantly though, you probably need to improve your filtration with some sponge and other stuff for your filter. Wouldn't hurt to hide a sponge filter somewhere behind the plants, at least for a while. As for your PH, I guess in the long term I would slowly add in some crushed coral and aragonite, but that might be more of a preference. I know there are people working with neutral water. Biggest issue for you is probably the biological filtration.
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I did make sort of a whimsical attempt at breeding Red Racetrack Nerites. If that sounds fun to you, and you figure out how to actually end up with viable offspring who survive, I'll take any advice you are willing to give. Are killifish big in Switzerland? I always thought that looked fun, especially the ones that dive into peat moss to lay and fertilize eggs.
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Any room in some peaceful community tanks? You could hatch out some killifish in the 3 gallon and distribute them out when they're big enough to not be eaten.
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I had some snails sold to me as Olive Nerites once that bred in my 10g. They seemed to lay eggs in the filter somewhere, then the babies would come out, and their shells would end up in a pile in the middle where my beast of a female betta would leave them. The adults eventually died, no offspring were spared. No other nerites have ever produced offspring for me. Just eggs laid all over the tank, which dissolve.
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Okay take this with a grain of salt, I'm just having fun with it a bit because I think you'll ultimately get it the way you like it. Do you also have an hob filter in there? If so, I'm thinking hang the heater near the intake to disperse the heat more efficiently. Move sponges to the corners, then place the wood where the rh sponge was, letting that long branch hang over the cave. Attach anubias and java fern wendetii to wood and caves to help hide equipment. Jungle val starting from just in front of the heater and then thickening up to hide the lh sponge.
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I want to address the gravel too, since most newborn fry will probably be dropped there, but I think eventually the crypts and the bacopa will be thick enough for them. I want to see how these crypts do in here, and if they settle in with less melt I will add some crypt. parva to create more of a carpet.
